Saturday, May 13, 2006

Mike Ridgway, Mark Towner

Mike Ridgway got himself a lawyer, visited himself a judge and will be allowed to attend the State Republican Convention.
A kind anonymous person posted the judge's decision here.
They also brought up an interesting question:
Mark Towner admitted to Bob Bernick that his purpose was to prevent Mike Ridgway from attending the convention. Can he get in trouble for that? Could he be made to pay Mike Ridgway's attorney fees?

12 Comments:

It like the pot calling the kettle black, and it is an example of how our party has been taken over by wackos. Unlike Towner,when I resign from the party I will mean it. For the first time in a long time I can see that the grass does seem greener, and what I thought was an ass is in reality a choice.

A frightening precedent. If you don't like a candidate (or you favor someone else) get an injunction so they can't show up. A frightening precedent. If you speak against a candidate and they lose, you must pay their campaigning costs. Talk about a way to intimidate anyone but a party line, keep-in-line, from running; and a way to intimidate the rest of us from ever speaking our mind about a candidate. If it is libel, Towner can sue (which is obvious he is willing to do), but my guess is he won't because the flyer is probably accurate (a difference in interpretation maybe, but not wrong).

When Democratic wacko Cody Judy ran for office two years ago, he was allowed to speak at the convention and was politely ignored. It got practically no attention and made no difference to anybody at all.

It's interesting to compare how Republicans handle their dissidents. The message seems to be "don't step out of line and don't challenge authority"

I came away from the Republican State Convention yesterday feeling like I had accomplished just about everything I went there to accomplish.

The first priority was, of course, defeating the Joe Cannon amendment to legalize the currently illegal practice of designating party leaders, elected officials, and political appointees, as "automatic delegates." (For more information on why I believe automatic delegates are an inherent corruption of a convention-based system of nominating candidates, please check out Jennifer Napier-Pearce's interview of me at www.insideutah.com.)

Speaking of "party leaders," I don't know what Joe Cannon and Enid Greene could have done more in their handling (read: ramrodding) of the convention.

Overall, it was not a happy convention as former U.S. Rep. Enid Greene, now state party vice chairwoman, was loudly booed and shouted at as she tried to conduct a morning vote on a controversial party constitutional amendment.

Pounding the gavel loudly on the podium in the South Towne Expo Center hall, Greene yelled, "I will have people be silent or removed" by the sergeant of arms.

How emotional was the debate over party rules? More "delegates" voted in a standing count on the amendment than there were delegates credentialed in the hall.

Flummoxed, party leaders then decided to have a rare, special handwritten ballot over the amendment, recommended by party leaders, that would give county parties the sole power over deciding who state delegates are, as is the current practice.

In the end, the amendment failed, although party leaders expect that the debate has not.